What makes families flourish, what makes them fail?

I came across two interesting articles lately and the content of those articles are polar opposites...what makes families flourish and what makes them fail? Obviously much has been written on the subject and there are many theories as to why some fail and some flourish. Check out this talk given by the Mayor of Philadelphia to members of that community. I've got to hand it to Mayor Michael Nutter. He hit the nail on the head in the 30 minutes that he addressed his church congregation about the problems in their city. You can even watch it here.

Nutter’s chastisements—which didn’t spare parents, either—included:

• “Take those God darn hoodies down, especially in the summer. Pull your pants up and buy a belt ’cause no one wants to see your underwear or the crack of your butt. Nobody. If you're going to act like a butt head, your butt is going to get locked up."
  
• “If you walk into somebody’s office with your hair uncombed and a pick in the back, and your shoes untied, and your pants half down, tattoos up and down your arms and on your neck, and you wonder why somebody won’t hire you? They don’t hire you ’cause you look like you’re crazy!”
• “The Immaculate Conception of our Lord Jesus Christ took place a long time ago, and it didn’t happen here in Philadelphia. So every one of these kids has two parents who were around and participating at the time. They need to be around now.”
• “Parents, get your act together. Get it together right now! Parents who neglect their children, who don’t know where they are, who don‘t know what they’re doing, who don‘t know who they’re hanging out with, you’re going to find yourself spending some quality time with your kids in jail.”
• To fathers: “You not a father just because you have a kid or two or three. If you're not providing moral instruction to your children and only sending child-support payments you are just a human ATM. If you doing neither, you're just a sperm donor.”

Nutter zeroed in on the true root causes of the trouble in their city - "irresponsible parents and their ignorant, slovenly and undisciplined kids." Wow. I admire his courage in lowering the boom.

What works then in strengthening families? Check out this article in the BYU Magazine on the latest research on the subject. There are five key components that families who flourish actually DO on a regular basis. They involve all members of the family in their pursuit of a family that flourishes. This way of living in a family is internalized living versus only doing lip service to these practices . The five key principles are:

Commitment
Forgiveness
Kindness
SacrificingLack of relational aggression